The Ballestas Islands were extremely impressive in spite of the grey foggy day which seemed set to ruin any hope of us seeing anything. After a short speedboat ride, skimming through the mist along soft silver waves, a series of islands began to emerge. As we got closer we could see that they were carpeted with millions of sea birds, who also filled the sky with amazing endless formations. The pelicans were huge with strange voices and clapping beaks and tiny Humbolt penguins hopped and clambered up the rocks. Gangs of squabbling sealions hung out under archways cut into rockfaces and our driver drove us within meters of everything. The squawks of the birds filled our ears and the the islands were topped with a generous white layer of "guano", which was pungent to say the least. We were told that every year this would be collected and exported as fertilizer. And I thought admin work was bad.

We spent the afternoon being shown around the National Park which was, rather strangely, a desert on the coast. In spite of some beautiful cliffs, this was a bit of a disappointment. By the end of the tour it had become a comedy sketch - the guide taking us from one barren expanse of sand to another and struggling to rouse anything close to interest from even the most dedicated members of the group. Typically the museum was in ruins - another victim, we were told, of the earthquake two years ago. It was shocking to see how little the area had recovered, even in it´s prime tourist spots. The final anticlimax was flamingos - or at least that is what we were assured they were. They were so far away they could easily have been grizzly bears for all I knew, nevertheless we amused ourselves by feigning enthusiasm with other members of the tour.

The next part of our journey took us further South into this desert region. Soon the gentle plains became huge mountainous dunes and we arrived in Ica just as the sun disappeared behind the largest of them. It was a spectacular but also slightly disconcerting site - we were here for the sandboarding and I had no idea the dunes would be so imposing. With this in mind we got some boards the next morning (and a tutor who seemed to just want someone to hang out with) and made our way to one of the smaller dunes to practice falling over and see if we could master the art of minimalising oral sand intake. We had signed up for a dune buggy ride and sandboarding later that afternoon and the idea was that we would do all this in private before we started making fools of ourselves in larger groups.

In fact it was fairly simple to stay up while flying down a sandy slope and although neither of us were able to turn, slow down or have any real control over where we were going, by the time the afternoon came we were confidently surfing down with the best of them.The slopes became increasingly large until we were basically sliding down a mountain of sand from top to bottom in a matter of seconds. We lay on our fronts and used our legs to steer or slow down (although no-one seemed to be interested in either) and shot off at ridiculous speeds, screaming into the distance and shrinking to specks as we reached the bottom.

We were driven around the dunes in a dune buggy and although I hadn´t anticipated this part of the experience to be of any great significance, it turned out to be the highlight. Because we had chosen a later excursion the sun had started setting as we were sandboarding and now, as we hurtled around the dunes, the low orange sun cast beautiful shadows across the immense landscape and we could see the lights of the towns which sit comfily nestled in between the dunes. These tranquil images, particularly that of the palm fringed oasis of Huacachina, were juxtaposed wonderfully with the manic roar of the dune buggy which bounced and skidded as it flew up and down the dunes. It was like being on a really fast, really dangerous rollercoaster - which is, I assure you, a good thing, particularly when you make it safely home to the hostel.

The near death experiences continued into the night - an earthquake disturbing the peace of early morning. True to form, I paid it no attention whatsoever. I was only interested in resting up for some more sandboarding and when I finally woke we rented two snowboards - a progressive step as these are larger, faster and have better control than the wooden boards they give you otherwise. We spent the afternoon climbing up the larger dunes and coasting down again. Josh tired quickly - which I suggested was surely a sign that he should stop getting up early - but I could not stop, I pushed myself to go higher and higher. I was completely addicted.

A sandboarding joke was doing the rounds which I liked because you can pretty much apply it to any sport or hobby. It goes:

What is the hardest part of sandboarding?Telling your parents your gay.

If I was being pedantic I would point out that actually the hardest part is trudging up the steep sand slopes in the baking hot sun - as much as we enjoyed going down the dunes, summoning the energy to climb them was proving difficult and eventually I had exhausted even my deepest reserves. After two days we were bruised and aching for a new setting.

Well. I know this isn't days ago, and I'm sorry, but I DID have other homework assignments to do (by the same teacher who is grading this, might I add!) (um... no, thats really only an excuse because I just couldn't seem to find a good way to START this entry. I know, i am pathetic.)

Then, where in the world was this blog GOING???? Oh yeah. I remember.

Day 2. LessonsBiking.Museums (all in all, Torture.)

After breakfast we went back to our cabins to grab jackets and brush our teeth before we got fitted with our bikes.

Let me just tell you now, they were huge. And red.

I'm pretty average (height-wise) for a 7th grader, but I had to run and jump to get on my bike and even then it was a fifty-fifty chance of staying on. The seat was so high that when i stood up on the ground, the seat would be about even with the base of my spine! At least they HAD small bikes (for this was what mine was called) because last year they were all taken and the 7th graders had to ride on a big bike which are a good 2 inches taller than the small ones.

I walked up to my test bike smiling, 'cause I was thinking that it was a joke and they were going to wheel up one my sized. I couldn't believe it when i figured out that I was actually supposed to RIDE that! I didn't understand that I could be asked to maneuver something so massive for so long! Then we got going. The trip was around 35 minutes long and rather painful at that. Lets just say a lot of stopping and starting is not ALWAYS a good combination…

But once we got there it was actually enjoyable! We went to a teeny, tiny, little museum about the nature of Gotland and how it is so amazingly fabulous they have to have a boring museum to explain it. Everyone was REALLY bored with it until they found the guest book and started writing comments (some were nice, others, not so nice…) I liked the museum, well, only after I found a seat and started to write. You see, I write. About everything. THAT is what's getting me through this assignment.

But anyway, after the tiny museum we rotated with the other classes and were sent to the Bird Museum. (I don't think that's actually what it was called, I just wasn't paying attention.) Once we walked in, though, I realized that I (and the rest of 7c) had underestimated this. When I looked around, I could tell that almost all of my classmates were as spellbound as I was, but maybe more, cause I was still in email-writing mode. But I could comprehend enough to tell that I was looking at some AWESOME pieces of work. It was all by the same artist and let me tell you, he was GIFTED. The one downer was that all he painted and sketched were birds.

I love birds (they're really cool to write about) especially owls, but I can only take so MUCH of them! So after a while I sat down on a (surprisingly comfortable) white couch with white pillows and opened up my thought sketchbook.

Its pink.

I know.

Annnnyy-way, 2 minutes after I opened up my book, we had to go. 2 MINUTES!!! That is NOT enough time for me to record a WHOLE DAY! This ENTRY has taken 2 HOURS!! (with breaks, of course. Whats a chocolate lover to do when she's in the middle of a mind blank??? That's right, eat chocolate.)

So after that we went to a HIGHLY disappointing marine museum, we biked back to our old-person retirement vacation place and went on with our day. Lunch. Then lessons. And lessons. And dinner. And I think a campfire. I can't remember.

But anyway, I suspect I will write again tomorrow. No matter that this project is due tomorrow and I still have 2 more entries to go and that I can't get my pictures to load thus producing a bad grade and an unhappy reader.